Trial day dawns for Steubenville: editorial

View full sizeLong before the trial was to begin, Steubenville became the site of protests involving the case. This is a Jan. 5 rally at the Jefferson County Courthouse.Associated Press file

On Wednesday, in Jefferson County Juvenile Court, the gavel drops on a sexual-assault trial that has drawn worldwide attention for what it says about small-town insularity, the link between partying and sexual violence among young people and how social media can turn up the volume -- for good and ill.

It features two sophomore starters of a storied football team and the 16-year-old survivor of a alleged rape that went viral and triggered international outrage. Social media were used to incite civil disobedience and witnesses escaped prosecution even though they admitted shooting photographs or videos of the survivor when she was nude or partially naked. Some of those witnesses are expected to testify against the defendants, both of them 16-year-old Steubenville High School football players.'

The two teens were arrested last August in the wake of a liquor-fueled, end-of-summer blowout that featured online postings of the suspects herding the intoxicated and barely conscious girl from party to party.

At least one defense lawyer has signaled he will argue that the girl was complicit in the alleged rape. "She didn't affirmatively say no," attorney Walter Madison told Plain Dealer reporter Rachel Dissell.

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Hundreds of demonstrators organized by Occupy Steubenville are expected to rally outside the courthouse in support of the teenager.

But the trial must also raise awareness about sexual violence and its real-life consequences.

Currently, Ohio offers no dedicated state funds to rape crisis centers. Steubenville houses only an outreach office of the West Virginia-based Sexual Assault Help Center. The office helps survivors, but its federal funds can't be used to provide prevention education, according to Katie Hanna of the Ohio Alliance to End Sexual Violence.

The decision by visiting Judge Thomas Lipps to open the trial to the public despite the age of the defendants should also open some parents' eyes to the downsides of underage partying. And maybe it will inspire some young people to treat the next incapacitated girl as a person instead of as prey.